Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Microsoft has released to manufacturing its Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 update, which adds additional product support plus a fix for an infamous bug that has plagued Microsoft's consumer server offering since December.

The bug in question, described in knowledgebase article 946676, affected systems using more than one hard disk, causing files saved with the NTFS file system to become corrupted when saved via Windows Home Server (WHS). The problem was associated mostly with Microsoft applications -- a rather embarrassing problem, since WHS is designed, in part, to back up data on a home network.

Power Pack 1 adds support for Windows Vista x64-based PCs, according to Microsoft's announcement. Microsoft has also improved WHS's performance and power consumption with Power Pack 1. The update also enables backups of shared folders and adds improvements to WHS's remote access capabilities.

Microsoft released the English version of Power Pack 1, which is available now here via the Microsoft Download Center. The English version will also be available through Windows Update on August 4, according to the We Got Served blog.

Chinese and Japanese versions of Power Pack 1 will be released to manufacturing sometime in August, according to Microsoft's announcement. French, German and Spanish editions will be available via the Microsoft Download Center on August 4, says the We Got Served blog.

Power Pack 1 can't be used with the beta or release candidate versions of WHS. You have to remove the beta version before applying Power Pack 1, according to Microsoft's description of Power Pack 1.

Some folder and database files are not designed to be used on WHS, according to the We Got Served blog, which points to knowledgebase article 955690 on the topic. Those files include Outlook .pst files, which some use to copy e-mail messages to local computer. The files are unsupported on a local area network and so Microsoft recommends not storing them on WHS.

Also, some database files, such as those used in Intuit's Quicken finance program, were designed for use on a single computer. Microsoft's knowledge base says that these kinds of files can get corrupted if stored on WHS.

Microsoft offers a technical brief on backup and restore using WHS, which can be accessed here. There also an explanation on using WHS's remote access capabilities, which can be accessed here.

Microsoft also offers a software developer kit, API reference and developer's guide for WHS, which can be accessed here.